Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights: the latent logistics and the Overt concerns

Abstract

Awareness of indigenous knowledge (IK) and concerns of protecting it was growing over time. Most of the IK descends from ancient tradition and would need a proper validation and documentation. IK is found in a wide variety of areas, but this paper covers only agricultural crops. There are provisions in the Plant Variety Protection of Farmers' Rights Bill, 2000, for registration of farmer-varieties with associated protection and benefit sharing but exclusive provisions for IK protection possibly remains to be focused. Indigenous genetic wealth (IGW), on the other hand, consists of herbs, medicinal plants, landraces of a variety of plant species and such genetic resources. The expression of the characteristic traits of IGW is highly site-specific. To meet the commercial demands of protected IGW, their genetic purity has to be maintained. This would imply maintaining their site-specific trait expression and therefore conservation at their native habitats. Further IK and IGW are tightly linked and cannot be isolated for protection; they must be treated as one integrated unit. These perceptions, the emerging problems and paradigms are discussed in this paper.